Carbon Cycle
Two main components of the carbon cycle
What are geological and biological?
The percentage of the atmosphere that is nitrogen.
What is 78%?
Photosynthesis
The definition of energy
What is "the ability to do work"?
Process of water changing from a liquid to a gas state
What is evaporation?
Process of water entering the soil at the surface
What is infiltration?
Example of carbon stored below the earth's surface
Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas
Action in the cycle performed by lightning or by bacteria in the soil.
What is nitrogen fixation?
The inputs of photosynthesis
What are carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight?
The only form of energy that continuously enters the earths ecosphere
What is sunlight?
The process when water vapor returns to a liquid state and collects around tiny particles in the air
What is condensation?
Removal of water from the soil by plants
What is uptake?
Time scale of geological carbon storage
What is millions of years?
Plant category that includes peas, red clover, and soybeans.
What are legumes?
The gas released when decomposers break down dead organic matter
What is carbon dioxide?
Usual form in which energy is lost during the energy cycle
What is heat?
The process when snow changes state directly from ice to gas
What is sublimation?
Nutrients needed by plants in large amounts.
What are macronutrients? (Ex.: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium)
Two functions of carbon for an organism
What are structure and energy?
Plants get the nitrogen they need from here.
What is the soil?
The gas consumed when organisms convert stored food into energy
What is oxygen?
The way animals get energy and nutrients
What is by eating plants or other animals?
The age of the oldest ice cores taken from glaciers
What is 800,000 years old?
Movement of matter within and between ecosystems caused by the interaction of organisms, geologic forces, or chemical reactions.
What are biogeochemical cycles?
Some sources of carbon in the atmosphere
What are respiration, deforestation, decomposition, and combustion.
Name of the nitrogen cycle process performed by decomposers in the soil.
What is ammonification?
Source of oxygen for plants' roots
The soil
Abiotic factors that affect the weathering of rocks
What are temperature and precipitation?
The process of plants' releasing water through openings in their leaves
What is transpiration?
Process when water vapor changes directly to ice
What is deposition?